


arsonist's lullaby

by sterydia



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Demons, F/M, Future Fic, Ghosts, I'm Bad At Tagging, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Set after 6B, Sexual Content, Supernatural Elements, slightly inspired by Supernatural, with some slight changes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 04:28:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9640784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sterydia/pseuds/sterydia
Summary: “I’m going to save you before the year is out,” she whispered against his mouth, and Stiles believed her. He would always believe her.-Stiles sells his soul in order to save his friends. Lydia refuses to let him go, and searches for a way to save his life.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So here it is, my little contribution to the Stydia Big Bang on Tumblr. I spent a month writing this story and I have to say I'm super happy with how it turned out! 
> 
> Manys thanks the amazing little team that I was given while writing this fic, who all worked so hard!
> 
> \- Sydney ([theblakes](http://topanga.co.vu/)) was a rockstar beta with school stuff going on! ♥
> 
> \- See the absolutely gorgeous gifset that Leeann ([lumosed](http://lumosed.tumblr.com/)) made for the fic [here](http://lumosed.tumblr.com/post/157039048940) ♥
> 
> \- See the very pretty aesthetic set that Lauren ([hollandroden](http://hollandroden.tumblr.com/)) made for the fic [here](http://hollandroden.tumblr.com/post/157031468990/stydia-big-bang-aesthetic-for-arsonists-lullaby)! ♥
> 
> \- And finally, the beautiful (hand made!) title card was done by Ronnie ([songof-light)](http://songof-light.tumblr.com/)! ♥
> 
> \- Also, many many many thanks to my friends on Livejournal who listened to me angst over this story, you lovelies rock!
> 
> \- And thank you so much to everyone at [stydiamonth](http://stydiamonth.tumblr.com/) and [stydiacast](http://stydiacast.tumblr.com/) for running this big bang!

banner credit to [Ronnie](http://songof-light.tumblr.com)

 

“We have to keep going!” Scott shouted over the deafening sound of the rain.

Stiles grit his teeth as he kept tripping over fallen branches that laid haphazardly in his path, doing his best to keep up with Scott and keep Malia on her feet at the same time. She was barely conscious, dark blood running down the side of her face and becoming watery as it mixed with the rain.

“Where is it?” Stiles asked, more than a touch of panic affecting his tone. When Scott turned to look, Stiles saw the claw marks that were deeply slashed into his cheek.

“I don’t know! Get to the Jeep!” He was frantic, hoping that they’d lost what had been after them somewhere in the woods. 

The jeep was parked in the clearing outside of the Preserve, and Stiles handed Malia over to Scott, who quickly scooped her up and into his arms. A sharp scream of pain escaped her as Stiles fought to get his keys out of the pocket of his soaking wet jeans. A screech that sounded entirely inhuman echoed through the trees, making every muscle in Stiles’ body tense with the anticipation of yet another fight.

Scott got Malia into the backseat while Stiles attempted to start the Jeep. The engine stuttered and whined, before falling silent.

“Are you kidding me?” Malia groaned as she lay on her good side. Scott opened the passenger door and climbed in.

“Stiles, I thought you said you just had this thing serviced?” He asked, panic and desperation seeping into his voice.

Slamming his foot on the gas pedal, Stiles cursed. “I did!”

In front of the Jeep, the trees shook with the motion of somthing passing through them. Stiles closed his eyes and twisted the key, letting out a startled shout when the engine roared to life. He quickly threw the Jeep in reverse and backed up, tires squealing as he drove away from the Preserve. He took a sharp turn out onto the main road, causing Scott to quickly grab for the assist handle above the door. Malia kicked the back of his seat weakly.

“Where am I going?” Stiles asked as he flipped the switch for the windshield wipers. It was raining harder and he could barely see the road. “Scotty, where am I going?”

When he glanced away from the road, he saw that Scott was slumped back in the seat, hands pressed over his side. There wasn’t any blood coming from between his fingers, but it wouldn’t be long. A quick glance in the rearview mirror made it clear to Stiles that Malia was fighting to keep her eyes open.

“Lydia’s,” Scott finally spoke, his voice hoarse. “The rest of the pack is there. I need to check on them. I’ll call my mom once we arrive.”  It was like he was telling both Stiles and himself, trying to convince the both of them that they actually would make it to the redhead’s house.

Stiles pressed harder on the gas, bringing the Jeep closer and closer to eighty miles. There was no one else on the road and if they happened to pass a cop, Stiles would lead a high speed chase all the way to Lydia Martin’s house and not think twice about it. The last time Scott had been hurt this bad, he’d been too blinded with rage and grief to realize that it was serious. He refused to make the same mistake again.

Lydia was standing on the front porch when Stiles brought the Jeep to a screeching halt in her driveway. Her hair was whipping around her face in the rain and wind, and for a moment, he was distracted. She looked terrified, and it made him think of that night when the Ghost Riders came for him. Scott’s attempt to get Malia out of the back of the jeep brought him back to reality.

“I’ve got her! Get inside!” Stiles insisted as he got out, but he knew that Scott wasn’t going to get to safety until they did. He lifted Malia into his arms as carefully as he could.  The boy would have smiled at the curses that she let out if not for the fact that she was in immense amounts of pain.

She hadn’t started healing yet; neither had Scott. As soon as they were on the porch, Lydia immediately caught one of Scott’s arms, lifting it over her shoulder to help him inside. The house was quiet, Lydia’s mother thankfully nowhere in sight. Stiles didn’t think he could bear Natalie Martin’s questions right then.

“Take her into the den,” Lydia instructed, and Stiles felt her hand between his shoulderblades for a brief moment.

As he put Malia down, Kira rushed into the room from the entrance off of the kitchen, relief shining in her eyes at the sight of them all being back in one piece. Lydia let go of Scott so that Kira could take over, and Malia lifted her shirt to examine the jagged claw marks on her side.

“I’m gonna go get some bandages,” Stiles announced, feeling lightheaded and woozy at the sight of all of that blood.

Lydia gestured over her shoulder, “First aid kit’s in the--”

“I know,” he headed for the upstairs bathroom.

They didn’t need this stuff often; when one of the shifters got hurt, it usually started healing within the hour. The last time that Stiles had seen wounds this bad was when Scott had walked around with a gaping hole in his chest for days, unable to heal because of the rift in the pack.

Grabbing the small duffel bag that served as Lydia’s first aid kit, Stiles started to leave the bathroom, only to nearly run right into the aforementioned banshee in the hall.

“Are you okay?” She asked, worry clouding her voice.

Stiles dragged a hand through his hair, “They’re not healing, Lydia. They should have already started.  Liam got attacked yesterday, and he’s still not healing either. What the hell even does something like that?”

“I don’t know.” Reaching up, Lydia gently grasped his face, thumb running back and forth over the hinge of his jaw, “But we’ll figure it out, we always do.”

She was right, and he knew that she was right. All that they had been through, they managed to make it out on the other side. As cheesy as it sounded, they were all still together and that was what mattered. But half of the pack was sporting claw marks from something that they couldn’t even see. They’d dealt with a lot of things, but not invisible monsters.

“Let’s bandage them up, call Mrs. McCall, and then start doing research, okay?” Lydia suggested. “Invisibility narrows it down a little... there has to be something in the Beastiary.”

Downstairs, they bandaged Malia and Scott up as best they could. Scott called Melissa, who probably broke some speed limits in order to get there. But she wasn’t alone, Noah was with her, wearing street clothes instead of his Sheriff’s uniform. It was supposed to be his night off, Stiles remembered vaguely as his father asked him if he’d been hurt at all.  You never do get a break in Beacon Hills.

* * *

Kira and Lydia had been the ones to stop the Ghost Riders, and save everyone trapped in the train station, including Stiles. When Kira came back, her fox stronger than ever but under her control, she’d brought the idea to Lydia of trying to amplify her powers and combine them with Lydia’s. Push the lightning into the Riders, like bullets.

It shouldn’t have been that simple, but it was. People began reappearing in town, everyone began remembering. When Alex reappeared in the jail cell that he’d been taken from, Lydia knew where they needed to go. They found Stiles in the parking lot of the high school, standing in the exact spot that the jeep had been in. Malia had barely put the car in park before Scott and Lydia were throwing open the back doors and running towards him.

Lydia flung herself into Stiles’ arms and reveled in the fact that he was really there; flesh and bone.  She could touch him.  He was right there with her. He clung to the girl, hands tangling in her hair as he looked into her eyes, trying to make sure that she was really there in front of him.

“Do you remember me?” He asked, and Lydia nodded rapidly.  Yes, I remember you.  Yes, yes, yes.

“I remember you, I remember everything,” and then she kissed him, like she’d wanted to in the Jeep when there wasn’t enough time. Lydia fisted her hands into the fabric of his shirt, pulling back and making him swear not to leave her ever again.

“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away,” Stiles winced after he said it, but Lydia only rolled her eyes fondly and pulled him in to kiss him again. She felt his mouth curve up as he smiled into the kiss, and she pretended that neither of them were crying.

Everything after that was a blur. She remembered Scott hugging Stiles, and she remembered the sound of squealing tires as Noah pulled his police cruiser into the parking lot and came running towards his son, door open and engine still running. Claudia wasn’t with him, and a part of Lydia knew that meant that because Stiles was back, she was gone.

Telling Stiles about her had been hard. Nothing of when she’d been there remained in the house.  It looked like it did before Stiles was taken. Noah kept apologizing to him, like it was the Sheriff’s fault that his need to fill the void of his missing son was something to be blamed for. But explaining how it had been for Lenore when she conjured Caleb had helped. Still, Lydia knew that it didn’t hurt Stiles any less.

That night, instead of going home, she stayed at the Stilinski’s. Stiles was scared to go to sleep at first, wondering if he would wake up back in the train station. So Lydia talked. The two of them lay in Stiles’ bed, facing one another. She told him about everything; having vivid flashbacks of the night that the Ghost Riders took Stiles, about going to see Stiles’ grandfather and the old woman that she saw in the living room. When Stiles told her that the woman, and the kid that Lydia saw, were both in the the train station with him, it made her feel slightly better about being doubted for so long.

He did fall asleep eventually, but Lydia refused to close her eyes. She watched the way his eyes moved behind the lids, and she kept expecting him to snore.  But he didn’t. Reaching out, she brushed her fingertips lightly across his cheek. His brow furrowed and he made a slight noise of protest. Lydia smiled to herself, she couldn’t help it.

“Remember I love you,” she whispered into the darkness of Stiles’ bedroom. She closed her eyes, convinced that he didn’t hear her. She would tell him again in the morning, tell him every day that she could.

Stiles shifted around on the bed, though, pulling Lydia into his arms. He wasn’t as asleep as she’d thought.

* * *

“It’s a Daeva,” Lydia announced. They’d been looking through the Beastiary and were unable to find anything. But she’d had Mason borrow the book from the school library, the one that she’d found the Hellhound in. “It’s the only thing in here that even matches how you described it, as well as the wounds that everyone has.”

Stiles examined the shadowy picture on the page, and the image that showed deep gouges on the body that looked similar to the ones that were on Scott, Liam and Malia. “What is it?”

“‘According to this, the name translates to ‘demon of darkness’. They are considered ancient demonic creatures of shadows, and they don’t need human hosts. They are summoned by demons, using black altars,” Lydia explained.

“Oh, fun,” he muttered, turning the book so that he could read over more of the page. “It wouldn’t happen to tell us how to get rid of the little shadowy bastard would it?”

It had been two days that they had been looking. Everyone had essentially moved into the Martin’s house for their own safety. None of the shifters had started to heal, and Melissa was treating the wounds as best she could. No one else had been attacked in the past two days, but something else was coming.  Lydia could feel it.

“Zoroastrian, what the hell is that?” Stiles asked, mostly to himself. Lydia could see that he, like everyone else, was getting frustrated with not having any answers.

Lydia undid her braid and raked her fingers through her hair tiredly, “Apparently, it’s an ancient brand of magic that came along before Jesus Christ. It doesn’t say how to kill it, but it does say how to ward it off. Bright lights, enough to be sure that no shadows can form.”

Stiles was watching her, hand propped up on his chin and a smudge of blue ink on his cheek. He hadn’t slept in two days, and neither had she.  “It’s going to be hard to create that much light in the woods.  Unless, do you have a supernatural flashlight that I don’t know about?”

A noise on the stairs startled the pair and caused them both to look up. It was Scott, doing his best to hobble down the stairs. He looked pale and tired, but no worse than the night that they brought him back.

“We’ll get some of those ultrasonic emitters from Argent. Y’know, the ones that he used to track the wolves? They could be bright enough,” he offered as he managed to sit down in one of the dining room chairs.

It could work, if they could find a way to amplify the brightness. But there was no way to know if they could do that, or how they would know who the Daeva was going to go after next. Mason was supposed to be meeting with Brett’s pack to see if Satomi knew anything, doing his best to fill the emissary duties that he’d taken up since the original pack graduated. Lydia’s best guess had been that the Daeva was after the pack specifically.

“Why don’t we just summon the demon and make it tell us where its altar is?” Stiles suggested.

Lydia stared at him, a look of disbelief clearly displayed on her face. “I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just suggest something that could make things worse.”

“Stiles, that demon is what summoned this Daeva thing.  What makes you think that it would even listen to us?” Scott asked, an incredulous tone clear in his voice.

He did have a point, Stiles could admit. But he couldn’t think of anything else that could help them get rid of an invisible shadow demon. It was impossible to catch it, or to fight it.

“Well, I would say that our alpha could just threaten it into destroying the altar, but you look like death warmed over. I wouldn’t even let you out of the front door,” he said, shaking his head.

Scott shrugged. “I could probably still take you,” he replied lightly, but Stiles could still see the dark smudges under his eyes and even though he tried not to show it, Scott was in pain.

“Good to know that the wolf’s still got jokes,” he said, before pulling the book closer so that he could read everything about the Daeva.

* * *

Stiles woke up alone. He specifically remembered falling asleep on the couch with Lydia, the television playing some old black and white movie on mute. Squinting at his cell phone, he discovered that it was almost five in the morning. The rest of the house was quiet, as everyone was still sleeping. Pulling himself up and off of the couch, Stiles went in search of Lydia.

The kitchen light was on, and when he walked in, she had her back to him, standing in front of the coffee maker.

“Isn’t it a little early for caffeine?” he asked as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. But Lydia didn’t turn around, or even acknowledge his presence. “Lyds?”

When she still didn’t answer him, Stiles walked over to her. She wasn’t looking at the coffee pot.  No, she was staring off into space. But her hands were moving, and when he looked down at the counter, he saw that she’d spilled coffee grounds on the countertop and was drawing in them. 

“Lydia? Can you hear me?” he asked gently. He didn’t touch her.  He juste knew that she was in that same state that she would go into when she was figuring out the cypher keys for the dead pool.

She didn’t answer, instead moving her fingers over and over in the coffee. Stiles swallowed hard when he saw what she was drawing.  To anyone else it would look like the start of a bullseye, but Stiles knew better.  There was a larger circle with a smaller one inside of it.

“Boy, good thing you drew me a picture,” Lydia whispered. Stiles blinked. That was the exact thing that the tattoo artist had said to Scott when the alpha had shown him the drawing that he wanted of his tattoo.

She startled suddenly, and turned to look at Stiles, “Stiles?  What am I doing in the kitchen?”

Even after the amount of time that Lydia had been a banshee, she still felt so scared when something happened that she couldn’t control, and that broke Stiles’ heart a little.

He pointed down. “You were drawing that.”

She stared at the pile of coffee and the obvious drawing of Scott’s tattoo, and she let out a hysterical little laugh. “When you were gone, I wrote the word ‘mischief’ over and over until it spelled out your name. I didn’t understand what it meant until your dad remembered you.”

Stiles reached for her, but she backed away, grabbing the can of coffee so that she could clean up the mess before anyone else could see it. “Does this mean that Scott--”

“It means that we need to find a way to get rid of the Daeva, or else we’re going to lose everyone,” she replied, her voice shaking.

After scooping all of the coffee grounds back into the can, Lydia turned and threw the entire thing in the trash. She then leaned against the counter, staring at her hands.

“It’s not that they won’t heal, but it’s that they can’t. With three members of the pack hurt, that’s too much on them, and on Scott. He’s the alpha, and he draws his power from the pack. In order for them to heal, he needs to heal. And he isn’t going to.”

“Not even with the entire pack helping? We’re still here, Lyds, we could get Mason here and see if we could accelerate their healing,” Stiles suggested. But she only shook her head.

“Two humans, a banshee and a kitsune can’t do much right now,” she said.

Stiles threw his hands up in the air. “So what, we’re just going to let Scott die?”

Lydia started to cry, tears sliding down her cheeks, and Stiles felt like an asshole. But before he could say anything, she quickly swiped the evidence off of her face and started towards the dining room. Stiles couldn’t do anything but follow after her.

“Maybe there’s a way to make the Daeva solid.  It’ll be easier to fight then,” she said, twisting her hair up into a knot and dropping down into one of the chairs. Lydia grabbed her laptop and the book they’d been using for information.

“Corporealize the bastard and cut off its head,” Stiles agreed, but he’d already read the text twice and hadn’t seen anything about being able to do that. Still, he wouldn’t let her think that there wasn’t any hope.

Kira came shuffling downstairs an hour later, looking like she might have finally gotten some sleep. She was wearing one of Scott’s lacrosse hoodies, her hands tucked deeply into the pocket. “Is there any coffee?”

“No,” Lydia and Stiles said at the same time. Kira looked at them with a quirked eyebrow.

“Um, the grounds were bad...like, mold growing in them,” Stiles lied quickly.

She nodded, accepting it, and started to go into the kitchen. But Lydia stopped her. “How’s Scott doing this morning?”

Kira only smiled sadly and shook her head, walking out of the room. Stiles thought about telling her what Lydia had drawn in the coffee, and what it could mean, but when he looked across the table, Lydia was staring down at the book in front of her, looking lost.

“Hey,” Stiles reached across the table, and Lydia automatically took his hand. “We’ll figure this out.  We always do, right?”

Her mouth twisted upwards when he threw her own words back at her, but she just nodded.

* * *

When Lydia came to, she was sitting on the floor of her shower. Steam billowed around her, the impending scream clawing at her throat like some wild thing that wanted to escape. It hadn’t felt this bad, not since Eichen and Valack’s experiments that had left her power so unstable. She clasped her hands over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. Fighting the scream always made it worse, but she refused to do it. This was Scott, she couldn’t.  She wouldn’t.

A knock on the bathroom door caused her to jump and Natalie’s voice came from the other side. “Lydia, are you okay in there?”

“I’m fine!” she called back, pulling herself to her feet. Her limbs didn’t feel as shaky as they had a few minutes ago, and for now, the feeling of needing to scream had passed.

Turning off the water, Lydia reached for the handle of the stall door, but stopped. Drawn in the condensation on the glass were two circles that couldn’t be anything else but Scott’s tattoo. She wiped it away and stepped out of the stall, reaching for her towel.

Despite currently housing Lydia’s injured friends—her pack—her mother had finally come to terms with the supernatural. Her mother had refused to believe for quite some time, even when faced with clear evidence like Eichen. She had no idea what had made Natalie come around, but she was glad that she could talk to her mother about things without Natalie looking at her like she was crazy.

In her room, Lydia dressed in a flowy tank top and a pair of shorts, sweeping the damp waves of her hair up into a ponytail. She cast a quick glance around her room, certain that she was missing something. As she did, she noticed just how much of Stiles’ stuff had begun to accumulate in her room. His laptop on the end of her bed, a duffel bag of clothes beside her dresser. One of his flannel shirts was tossed haphazardly over the back of her desk chair, where it had been since before the attacks started. She remembered straddling Stiles’ hips in that chair, peeling the shirt from his shoulders and leaving teeth marks on his neck. She remembered enjoying the strangled sound that had escaped him, the way he’d laughed breathlessly and slid his hands beneath her shirt and tickled her sides in retaliation.

“Lydia!” Natalie called, pulling Lydia out of her thoughts. “Could you come down here, please?”

Downstairs in the kitchen, Noah, Natalie, and Melissa were talking.  But, as soon as she came into the room, they stopped. Refusing to let herself fear the worst, Lydia stepped even farther into the room and watched the three parents who suddenly acted as though their cups of coffee were the most interesting things in the room.

“What’s going on?” she asked cautiously.

“When is the last time you saw Stiles?” Melissa asked, and Lydia felt the dread hit her like a punch to the stomach.

“Not since this morning, he brought me coffee and said that he was going to meet with you,” she said to Noah.

The Sheriff shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since I was here the other day.”

Lydia reached for the counter to keep herself steady. Because it felt like the Ghost Riders all over again. Stiles had gone missing. No, not missing. Lydia wouldn’t let herself think that. He was somewhere. He had to be.

“Maybe he went to see Argent about the emitters. We’d come up with the idea of luring the Daeva into a circle. If the brightness could be amplified on them, maybe we could kill it with light.” 

But it sounds doubtful even to her own ears. They were all looking at her like she should have known the real answer, and maybe deep down, she did. Because it had been two days since Scott and Malia had been attacked, and nearly a week since Liam, and they were no closer to getting rid of the Daeva, or anyone being healed enough to leave the house.

“I’m going to call him and figure out where he is,” Lydia announced, walking back out of the room. She knew that they were all worried, especially Noah, that Stiles had up and disappeared on them with everything that was going on. With what had recently happened to them, they’d all agreed to stick close to the Martin house until they knew exactly how to get rid of the Daeva.

Lydia went back up to her room, grabbing her cell phone from her nightstand. Stiles was the second number on her speed dial and she pressed her phone to her ear, waiting for him to pick up. When he didn’t, she bit her bottom lip and squeezed her eyes closed. His voice mail message came up instead.

“Stilinski, you better not be doing what I think you’re doing. If you are, you better believe when you come back, I’m going to kick your ass,” she hesitated, shaking her head as if Stiles would have been able to see her on the other end of the phone. “I love you, you idiot.  Don’t do something stupid.  Please?”

* * *

His idea was incredibly stupid, he knew that, but Stiles didn’t know what else to do. He’d spent entirely too much time reading up on what he had to do, and now that he had the idea in his head, he saw it as the only reasonable option. It was going to work, or it wasn’t. Or the Daeva was going to sneak up on him and gut him in the woods. He tried not to think about that last option as he made in way towards the Nemeton.

According to what he’d read, in order to summon a demon it would have to be done at a place of great power, and the Nemeton had been the obvious choice. The ingredients were easy enough to get ahold of, the Latin incantation easy enough to learn. He mumbled them over and over to himself until he reached the Nemeton, and when he got there he felt a shiver run through him, the power of the tree reaching out for him. It was reaching for the ghost of the Nogitsune that was no longer there.

“It’s just a stupid tree,” Stiles muttered to himself as he set everything up.

There was a cloth that had an image of a goat head inside of a pentagram, an iron bowl filled with herbs that he’d taken from Deaton’s office, and candles. Using chalk, he drew lines that connected the candles to one another, and pulled out the box of matches and the small scalpel that he’d also taken from Deaton. The candles were to be lit in a specific order, and he hesitated with the scalpel, holding his hand over the bowl. The sight of blood had never sat well with him.  But still,he closed his eyes, and dug the blade into his palm. Hissing in pain, Stiles watched the blood drip down onto the herbs. Once he was satisfied there was enough, he reached for the matches again.

“ _Ad ligandum eos pariter eos coram me_ ,” he recited as he dropped the lit match into the bowl. The herbs sparked and flames rose up from the bowl, and Stiles waited. “I really hope I said that right.”

“Oh, don’t worry sweetie, your Latin is perfect,” a voice said behind him, and Stiles spun around, nearly falling off of the stump.

The woman who stood there didn’t look anything like a demon, and he belatedly remembered that demons were just clouds of smoke that took control of people. He’d seen her somewhere before, before she’d become a demon’s skin suit. He was pretty sure she worked at the library. She reminded Stiles of Jennifer Blake, enough that whenever he saw her, he’d have to do a double take. She didn’t look right in all of the black leather that the demon had put her in. He scrambled to his feet, scalpel in his hand.

She cocked up an eyebrow, “And what are you going to do with that?”

With a flick of her hand, the blade was gone, lost somewhere in the grass.

“C’mon Stiles, you called me. Obviously you wanna talk. So let’s talk,” she said, as if they were old friends. “You can call me Carin, if you’d like.”

He stepped down off of the Nemeton, and she went and sat down on it, crossing one leg over the other primly. A shiver went through her and her eyes went black, a slow grin spreading across her face. He wasn’t the only one who felt the power.

“I want the Daeva gone,” he said.

“You didn’t say pretty please. How rude.”

“My friends are dying!” he shouted, and his voice echoed off of the trees, birds screaming and flying away. Carin was unphased.

“I know, I’m trying to kill them. Clearly you don’t have any idea of what a demon does, Stiles,” she said with a shake of her head.

He looked down at his hand, the blood still sluggishly running out of the cut in his palm. And all he could see were the gashes in Malia’s side, the claw marks on Scott’s ribs that still wouldn’t heal, Liam’s leg looking like something out of a Saw movie. He thought about Lydia, who was holding back a scream to keep Scott alive. 

“I want to make a trade,” he said, and there was no turning back.

“What are you offering?” she asked, as if she didn’t already know.

He clenched his fist, blunt nails biting into the cut. It grounded him to that moment, and he knew it had to work. “My soul.”

Stiles had read about people being able to sell their souls for things. A lot of people did it for selfish reasons, fame or money, but this was a perfectly good reason to do it. A deal with a demon could give him ten years, ten long years to live. To him, it was worth it.

Carin threw back her head and laughed, and Stiles felt his stomach drop.

“Your soul? I mean, I take deals for souls all the time, but yours? What do you think it’s worth, exactly? I know everything you’ve done, Stiles Stilinski. Your soul? It’s...dirty,” she said.

He swallowed hard. “Do you mean Donovan? Because that was self defense--”

She cut him off, waving her hand in the air, and Stiles suddenly couldn’t talk. He put his hand to his throat as he felt the air around him thinning. She was choking him.

“Believe me, I don’t care that you’ve killed. I don’t even care that a naughty little fox spirit made itself at home in your brain and went on a mass murdering spree. But it all tarnishes the soul, makes it worth less than a decade,” she explained.

He had no idea how she knew so much about him, but he didn’t care. Finally, her invisible hold lessened and Stiles fell to his knees, gasping for breath. “I don’t want my friends to die.  Please.”

Carin got up, walking towards him and he wondered if she was just going to kill him instead. But instead, she reached down and patted the top of his head. “So selfless, it’s almost cute. Okay, let’s say I take this offer and make sure my little shadow pet disappears, and your friends will be fully healed. All of this in exchange for your soul.”

“How long?”

“One year.” His eyes widened and he stared up at her in disbelief. That wasn’t nearly enough time. But he knew what would happen if he didn’t say yes. There was no way to know if the pack would ever start to heal or if the Daeva would go after more people. “Oh, c’mon. It’s a good deal. I’m being generous.”

Stiles pulled himself to his feet, and she smiled up at him. He did know the girl that the demon was possessing; she worked in the young adult section of the library and a few weeks ago had given Stiles and Lydia suspicious looks when she saw them kissing between the stacks.

“One year, and my friends live?” he asked. 

She looked at him like he wasn’t getting the concept, but nodded slowly. Maybe Stiles could have gone back to Lydia’s and they could have found another way. But it was the fact that Lydia had begun to predict Scott’s death in the first place that had driven him there.  It had him scared enough to do this.

“Okay,” he said. Carin smiled before grabbing him by the face and kissing him. She was pulling away before he could push her off, and he blinked in confusion. “Okay, that was mildly gross.”

“Did you think I was going to make you sign in blood? Congratulations, Stiles, that just sealed the deal. I get your soul, and your friends should be feeling much better now,” she said.

“And the Daeva?”

“Gone.” Carin snapped her fingers, but then reached out and snatched Stiles closer by the front of his shirt. “But if you try to back out of our agreement, Stiles? I’m taking the redhead.”  He wanted to correct her, wanted to tell Carin that Lydia was strawberry-blonde, but knew that it wasn’t the time nor the place.

And then, just like that, she was gone. Stiles was left standing there alone. He should have felt good that he’d been able to help the pack, but all he felt was an overwhelming sense of dread. Not because he had one year to live. Because he had to go and tell everyone what he had done.

* * *

Lydia realized that something had happened when Scott came running down the stairs. She’d been pacing in the dining room, staring at her phone and waiting for it to ring. Her gaze shot up when she saw him.

“You finally healed?” she asked hopefully. The claw marks were gone from his face, and the limp that the other wounds had caused was gone. He looked a lot better, and less like something out of a zombie movie.

He lifted his shirt and showed her his healed side, but he wasn’t smiling. “That’s just it, I’ve healed, but I didn’t do it.”

Lydia looked at him in confusion. “You mean you healed instantly?”

“Malia and Liam are both fully healy too,” Kira said from the stairs. 

Worry gnawed at Lydia, because while it was great that they’d all healed, their healing process took a little longer. They didn’t do it. Scott seemed to be thinking the same thing that she was, and looked at her phone in her hands.

“Lydia, where’s Stiles?” he asked cautiously. Lydia stared at her phone a moment longer, before throwing it on the couch in annoyance.

“He left this morning.  His dad went to go look for him, but no one’s heard from him.”

But she could tell by the look on Scott’s face that they were both thinking the same thing. She heard the sound of the Jeep pulling into her driveway, and instead of going to open the front door, Lydia sat on the couch and waited. Stiles didn’t come in the house right away, and Lydia’s eyes traveled over towards Scott.

Finally, the front door opened and Stiles stepped inside. Scott stepped towards him in alarm, and Lydia jumped up as he grabbed a hold of Stiles’ arm.

“Is that blood?” Scott asked, and Lydia saw the gash on Stiles’ palm. 

“What happened?” she questioned, worry evident in her voice.

But Stiles ignored them both, smiling weakly at Scott. “You’re okay?”

Lydia was unsurprised that Stiles’ first worry was Scott. Especially after the past week, and the morning before. But the fact that Scott was okay, that the others were okay, that meant that something had happened. Stiles had done something. Because he didn’t look surprised.

“What did you do?” she demanded, surprised at how loud her voice was. 

“The Daeva is gone, I handled it,” he said. The dread that had been gnawing at her just kept growing.

Scott still had a hold of Stiles’ arm. “You handled it? How?”

Malia and Liam came downstairs with Kira, and Lydia saw that they both looked like they’d been magically healed. They also looked equally confused.

“I summoned the demon, okay, and I handled it,” Stiles repeated and Lydia closed her eyes for a moment.

“You what--” Scott started, but Stiles pulled his arm from his grasp and Lydia opened her eyes to see him walking towards her. As soon as he got close enough, she took a small step back.

“We said we weren’t going to do that! The demon could have killed you.” He started to reach for her, but Lydia put up a hand. “What did you do, Stiles?”

She pictured him somewhere out there, conjuring up a demon and doing something incredibly stupid. Demons wanted things in return for the favors they did, and asking a demon to take its little pet somewhere else to torture people seemed like it would come with a high price. When she focused her gaze on Stiles’ face, she saw a smudge of red on his bottom lip that she almost mistook for blood. But it wasn’t blood, it was lipstick.

“Lydia, you felt it.  You knew what was going to happen! I couldn’t just let Scott die!” Stiles shouted.

If it was intentional, putting out there what she’d felt, she couldn’t tell. Maybe he was just trying to deflect from what he’d done. It was a selfish move on his part, because he might have saved the pack, but he didn’t want to tell them what it had cost him. For a moment, it felt like no one was in the room but them. And the longer they stared each other down, the more tears filled Stiles’ eyes. But he didn’t cry, his gaze steady and full of resolve.

“Just tell us what you did,” Kira spoke softly from the other side of the room, and Lydia’s gaze slid from her, to Scott, and back to Stiles again.

He wiped his hand over his face and Lydia expected the worst. “I made a trade, my soul for their lives.  The Daeva is gone.”

Lydia was not expecting that. It felt like all of the air had been pulled from the room, and she couldn’t breathe. The irony of having a panic attack right then wasn’t lost on her, but she still struggled for air and sank down into the nearest chair. Her nails dug into the upholstery, and there was a distant tearing sound as the fabric tore.

“Your soul? You sold your soul to a demon?” Malia asked, voice trembling with disbelief. 

But it was like Stiles didn’t hear her. He knelt down in front of Lydia, gently touching her knee. Immediately, she pushed his hand away. When he tried again, a choked sob escaped her and she shoved at him, trying to get away.

“How could you?” she shouted, over and over, trying to pull her hands free of his. But Stiles wouldn’t let go, trying to pull her into his arms and tell her that it was okay.

It was as far from okay as he could get. After everything they’d been through, the past year especially, Lydia had thought that things were finally somewhat near perfect. But obviously, she couldn’t have been more wrong. She wanted to tell him to stop telling her it was okay, but all she could do was cry. None of the others had moved or said anything, and there had been a time when anyone seeing her cry would have embarrassed her. Lydia was supposed to be strong, but she felt weak in that moment.

“I did it to save everyone. I knew that we weren’t going to find a way to fix anything! And when I found you in the kitchen the other morning, I knew what I had to do,” Stiles was pleading, but Lydia didn’t want to hear it.

She used her power. Not enough to hurt him, but enough to get him away from her, pushing him out of touching distance. Scott got between them before Stiles could say anything else.

“We could have figured it out!” he shouted.

Stiles shook his head. “No, no we wouldn’t have. Lydia knew that it was possible that you were going to die, and I couldn’t let that happen. Summoning the demon was our only shot.”

“How long?” Scott asked, and Lydia looked up at Stiles. He wasn’t looking at Scott, but instead staring straight at her. “How long, Stiles?”

Lydia had read up on demonology after the Nogitsune, during the summer before senior year. She had a pile of dusty books in her bedroom that cost far more than she was willing to admit, but she’d been curious to know more about them. There had been information about making deals with demons in there. One could sell their soul for a decade of time, and exchange they would be able to have whatever their heart desired. Three thousand six hundred and fifty days, that was all that she would have left with Stiles.

“A year,” he said quietly, and Lydia felt like he’d punched her in the gut.

Instead of three thousand six hundred and fifty days, it was only three hundred and sixty five. Ten years hadn’t felt like enough, one year was like a sick joke.

She felt a hand on her arm and flinched only to find Kira sitting down next to her. The kitsune reached over and wrapped her arms around her friend.  Lydia couldn’t tell her to go away, and instead, she sank into her friend’s arms and cried.

* * *

Stiles remembered the last good year that he had with his mom before she got really sick and had to be hospitalized. He was six, almost seven, and he and Scott spent afternoons playing under the kitchen table while Claudia and Melissa talked over coffee. Sometimes they’d talk about Scott’s dad, who had recently left. But that year was one of Stiles’ favorite years with his mother, because Claudia took him to do all sorts of things. They went to every amusement park they could. When Noah wasn’t working, they would have neighborhood cookouts and his mom would make the best potato salad ever. They would go to the beach, and one time they drove to Santa Monica to go to the pier. He’d fallen asleep halfway through drive home, curled up against Claudia’s side in the front seat between her and his dad.

One year wasn’t a long time. Stiles knew, realistically, that he’d made a huge mistake. But people do crazy things in times of desperation. And while he had no problem admitting to himself that he was a selfish person, he wasn’t just going to let Scott and the others die.  Certainly not when there had been another way.

“I couldn’t think of anything else,” Stiles said to Scott. They were sitting on Lydia’s living room floor. Malia and Liam had finally gone home, and Kira had taken Lydia upstairs. “I saw the signs that something was going to happen to you, and I couldn’t let it.  I couldn’t.”

Scott smiled sadly.  “I’ve already died once, Stiles.”

“And I wasn’t going to let it happen again, okay?”

“You’re right, we’ll find a way to get you out of this--” Stiles cut Scott off, getting up.

“No! The deal stays.” He started towards the stairs, intent on trying to get Lydia to talk to him. “If I try to get out of it, the demon said that she would come for Lydia.”

“Stiles…” Scott didn’t know what to say, and Stiles only shook his head.

“You can’t tell my dad, not yet.  Please. We’re still working out the fact that he conjured my dead mother out of grief because he didn’t remember me.  I don’t think that he could handle this.”

He didn’t wait for Scott to say anything else, instead turning and going up the stairs. Kira was coming down the hallway, but she stopped in his way, preventing him from going to into Lydia’s room.

“Thank you, for saving Scott, and Malia, and Liam. But Stiles, what you did? I’m not sure if it was brave or just stupid,” she said.

“It’s probably a little bit of both,” he replied and she gave him a sad little smile before walking past him and down the stairs.

He didn’t need to knock on Lydia’s door because it was open, and he could see her lying in her bed. Her back was to the door, but Stiles recognized the flannel shirt that she’d wrapped herself up in. Walking into the room, he pushed the door shut behind him. She didn’t move when he came in, or when he crawled onto the bed and wrapped himself around her.

“You didn’t think of me when you did it, did you?” she asked, her voice hoarse from crying.

Stiles sighed, tucking her hair behind her ears and tightening his hold on her. “I did. I thought about how it would feel for you to have to scream when three of your friends died.”

Lydia turned over in his arms and Stiles hated himself for the look that was on her face. He hadn’t seen her cry from something sad in a while, unless he counted rewatching “The Notebook” for the millionth time. But he’d never been the one to make her cry, and it was a feeling he didn’t like.

“I remember how you were...after Allison,” he said and Lydia’s bottom lip trembled slightly. “I couldn’t imagine you going through that again, let alone three times.”

He expected for her to pull away from him, to ask him to leave. He would have argued, but would have gone if she’d asked him to. Instead she moved closer, fingers gripping the front of his shirt as if she was the one who expected him to disappear out of her grasp. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

“Why only a year?” she asked, lifting his hand and examining the cut on his palm.

“The demon, she said my soul wasn’t worth ten years,” Lydia scoffed and started to protest, but Stiles shook his head. “Not after the things I’ve done.”

“The good should outweigh the bad,” she whispered, and Stiles saw a tear slide down the bridge of her nose. He kissed her forehead and dragged his thumb over her cheek, wiping the moisture away.

“A year is still a long time, Lyds. And I’m going to keep living like I should until my time is up. Going to college, being in the pack. Being with you. I don’t want anything to change,” he promised.

He was telling the lie to make them both feel better. It was no different than when he was a kid, and he would tell himself that because he had that great year with his mom, things were going to get better. It was a comfort in the moment, but he knew. Things didn’t get better then, and he was pretty sure they wouldn’t get better now.

“You and I both know everything is going to change,” she sighed, pulling out of his arms and sitting up.

He sat up, raking his fingers through his hair. “I know you, and I know you’re going to try to find a way to get me out of this. You’re thinking about it right now.”

“Of course I am, Stiles! You sold your soul to a demon and you’ll be dead in a year. There has to be a way out of it,” she protested.

“If I try to get out of the deal, she’s coming after you. Demons seem to take their soul collecting very seriously. Hey, look at me.” He pulled her around until she faced him. “Do you remember what I said to you in my bedroom when Jackson was a homicidal snake guy?”

Lydia suddenly looked furious. “And how do you think I’m going to feel when you die, huh? But what about everyone who will have to figure out how to live life without you in it?”

Stiles started to say something, but a knock on the door interrupted them. Lydia continued to glare at him for a few moments, before inviting whoever was on the other side of the door to come in. It was Stiles’ dad, and Stiles was grateful for the distraction. But he knew that Lydia wasn’t going to give up on it that easily.

* * *

Carin reappeared at the Nemeton that night. She’d felt the power that that little tree stump had, and she thought of all the things that she could do with it. Beacon Hills was an interesting town, and it would have been a shame not to have a little fun. And now she would have the soul of the alpha’s best friend as soon as the year was up. She just needed to give the McCall pack something else to focus on besides trying to save the doomed human. 

What Stiles hadn’t known about the Daeva was that all that he had to do was find the altar and destroy it. Carin wouldn’t have had control over it anymore, and it would have gotten bored and found some other town to terrorize. Selling his soul was a bold move, but a stupid one. She wondered what she could get the other members of his pack to do; an alpha’s soul would be a pretty impressive catch. A banshee wouldn’t be that bad either.

Her fingers danced across the wood, and it felt like being shocked, but in a pleasant way. This was the place that the fireflies came from, where the Oni were summoned from. It was the Oni that inspired Carin. She once heard of a supernatural being that could take the form of a spirit of the dead. They derived from Japanese mythology, and she thought that they would be perfect. Because nothing could distract someone like seeing a person that they thought they’d once lost.

Carin whistled happily as she got to work. She wouldn’t send it right away.  Instead, she’d let them dwell on what was going to become of them. But soon, very soon, she was going to flip their lives around even more.

* * *

It had been almost two weeks, and Beacon Hills felt eerily quiet after the Daeva was gone. The summer before college was supposed to be fun, and under any other circumstances, the pack might have been celebrating the fact that they were all alive. But what Stiles had done, it made them feel like they were already in mourning. They were lying to their parents, especially Noah, who was still under the assumption that his son would be leaving for college in September.

Lydia told Stiles that she would let it go, but they both knew that she was lying. If there was a way to get him out of the deal, Lydia was going to find it. It was almost childish, but she pointed out to Stiles that the demon said that  _ he _ couldn’t find a way out of his deal. She never said that Lydia couldn’t. But she was running out of books to look through and the banshee couldn’t buy anymore without her mother getting suspicious.

That was what led her to the animal clinic mere minutes before they were set to close. Scott was already gone for the night, and even though Lydia didn’t see any other vehicles, she knew that Deaton was in there. She hesitated at the door, raising her hand to knock. But he appeared there before she could.

“Lydia? Are you alright?” he asked as he pushed the door open. Before she could answer, he stepped aside to let her in, “Scott’s gone home for the night, if he’s who you’re looking for.”

Lydia wrapped her arms around herself, and Deaton gave her a sympathetic look as she stepped inside. She waited for him to lock the door and flip the sign to ‘closed’.  “What do you know about demons?”

He didn’t look surprised about the question, and that didn’t surprise her at all. He’d been an emissary for a long time, and she was pretty sure that he knew a lot more about the supernatural than he let on. She’d never seen him be ruffled or surprised by something one of them had told him.

“I know some lore.  Are you looking for something specific? Please, come into the back,” he welcomed, lifting the flip up counter for her to pass through.

Lydia had been in the backroom dozens of times. It was the same room where she had used Talia Hale’s claws to track Derek. The same room where she’d pushed Stiles under the water and set a whole string of events into motion. She remembered after Eichen, Stiles begging her to open her eyes as she lay on that exam table, weak from screaming so much. She would never forget that look of relief on his face when she’d finally looked up at him.

Deaton opened the door that led to his office and went in, coming back with a book. “I’m aware that you know how to read Latin, so maybe this can help you.”

The book was old, and when he handed it to Lydia, she felt how heavy it was despite the fact that it looked like it would fall apart in her hands.

“It’s got some specific demonology in there, and there might be some information that could be useful to you, depending on what it is you’re looking for,” he explained.

“Did Scott tell you what Stiles did?” Lydia asked, setting the book down on the examination table. Judging by the sympathetic look at that came over Deaton’s face, she knew that he had. “Is there any way to get him out of it?”

She didn’t want to get her hopes up, but there had to be something. There was a way out of everything, all they had to do was find it. She’d spent half of her senior year trying to remember Stiles, and she wasn’t about to lose him again.  She refused to. If she lost him this time, she knew that she was going to lose him for good. And Lydia would not accept that.

“Oh Ms. Martin, I’m sure that if there’s a way to get Stiles out of this, you’ll be the one to figure it out,” he said.  Lydia didn’t want to get her hopes up, but as she looked at that book, she found herself hoping anyways.

* * *

“Surfing?” Noah asked as he half listened, eying the steak on his plate dubiously. Stiles hoped that his dad wouldn’t think something was up just because he’d made a dinner that didn’t have anything green in it. “You’ve never been surfing a day in your life.”

“I know, that’s why I was thinking of learning. I live in California, isn’t it like a prerequisite to at least have the ability to surf?” he wondered.

“I surf,” Scott supplied helpfully, and Stiles pointed at him and nodded.

Melissa glanced between the two of them. “Stiles, you spent your entire summer before freshman year in and out of the emergency room with skateboarding injuries.”

“I was a clumsy fourteen year old!” he protested.

Noah stared at him. “You tripped over the rug in the hall thirty minutes ago.”

Stiles was going to miss this; dinners with his dad, arguing with him over trivial little things like healthy dinners and what kind of trouble Stiles was getting himself into. He hated thinking like it was going to be tomorrow and not the end of the year, but he couldn’t help it. Scott looked over at him, like he knew that he was thinking the same thing. The werewolf could hear Stiles’ heartbeat ticking up, and could sense what he was thinking about.

“I promise not to let him drown in the ocean,” Scott swore, knowing the idea would placate the Sheriff and get them back on subject.

Melissa shook her head fondly. “Well, on the bright side, one of you has supernatural healing abilities.”

They talked about college and summer plans through dinner, talked about making sure the Jeep was going to be able to make it to school without breaking down and leaving Stiles stranded on the side of the road. Melissa and Scott had been coming over for dinners since before Claudia died, though most nights it was just him and his dad, or him and Lydia if the Sheriff was working. Stiles knew that he was going to have a late shift, and he waited for Noah to question the steak for the third time since he and Scott had brought them home and thrown them on the grill.

“How long are you gonna keep this from him, Stiles?” Scott asked when they were out on the front porch. Melissa was walking to the car, and Scott kept his voice pitched low on purpose.

Stiles scuffed his shoe against the porch railing. “Not that long. I just need to figure out how to say it.”

He glanced up at Scott, but Scott was staring across the road, squinting at something unseen in the neighbor’s driveway. His eyes turned alpha red, and Stiles nudged him. “Yo, Scotty? What are you seeing, dude?”

“Nothing, I just thought I saw...nothing.” Scott shook his head, eyes returning to their normal color. “You need to tell your dad, before the summer ends.”

Stiles knew that he was right, and he would. He just wanted to have a few good weeks with his dad. After he told Noah, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he refused to let Stiles go off to school. He noticed Scott’s eyes drifting back over to the house across the street, but he just assumed that it was some kind of werewolf thing; maybe Scott sensed something out there that Stiles didn’t. If Carin was out there keeping tabs on him, Stiles wouldn’t be surprised.

“So, surf lessons next week?” Stiles asked, and Scott smiled and nodded before heading down the steps to the car. 

Stiles hesitated on the porch before going back inside. He saw Noah gathering up his badge and gun from the safe he kept them in, something he’d watched his dad do so many times over the years.

“I’m not gonna find you standing on a surfboard in the middle of the living room when I get home, am I?” Noah asked.

Stiles rolled his eyes. “No...well, maybe not. I’m not sure that I could get a surfboard shipped here before you get home.” 

The fact that Stiles was even thinking about it had Noah squinting at him like he wasn’t sure if he was serious. Finally, he just clapped Stiles on the shoulder and headed towards the front door.

“Hey, wait!” Stiles called, turning around to look at him. Noah paused in reaching for the door handle. He almost told him, it was right there on the tip of Stiles’ tongue. But he couldn’t do it. “Have a good night, pops.”

“Behave yourself, Stiles,” Noah instructed as he left, and Stiles smiled until he was gone.

*

* * *

What he thought he’d seen while he was at Stiles’ was keeping Scott awake. Or rather, who. Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, he’d been thinking about it for hours. There was no possible way he’d seen who he did. Maybe it was some sort of residual effect from being healed so quickly, or it had been someone else in the driveway.

“You weren’t imagining it,” the voice came from Scott’s left, quiet and familiar, and he bolted upright in bed, looking at the person sitting in the chair beside him. “You saw me. You  _ see _ me, Scott.”

Allison was sitting in that chair, looking so much like Scott remembered, as if he could ever forget. She didn’t look like the last time he’d seen her, lying in his arms telling him it was okay.  Instead, she looked like that day in the hall after they’d won against the Darach. Her gauzy white dress fell over her knees as she leaned forward on her elbows to stare at him. 

“Allison?” he whispered, still unsure. His voice cracked, and she smiled lightly.

There was still something off about her, but he didn’t know what exactly. Maybe she looked a little more pale than he remembered. Hesitantly, he shifted forward to touch her hand. She leaned back before he could.

“You’ve been busy since I left, Scott,” she said, but she sounded sad. “I think we almost ran into each other a little while ago.”

She was talking about when he’d died, and he knew that he hadn’t imagined seeing her.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. Her mouth twitched and Scott realized that she was smiling. “Allison?”

“I guess I wasn’t the only one who would sacrifice themselves for the good of my friends, huh?” 

Scott wondered how she knew about the deal that Stiles had made, but he was more concerned with why Allison’s ghost was sitting in his bedroom in the middle of the night.

“What are you doing here?” he repeated, and she propped her chin up on her hands. He started to say something else, but she flickered right before his eyes, like a light bulb that was ready to go out.

She shrugged. “I’m just checking in on you, Scott. Your best friend is going to be dead and gone in a year. I’m just...gauging your emotional state.”

“This isn’t you, it can’t be,” he refused, getting up off of his bed and walking towards the door. Maybe if he left the room, whoever the ghost was that looked like Allison would leave.

“Do you know that I kept that one good picture from the photo booth for the longest time? Even after we broke up, I kept it,” Scott stopped, turning around to look at her as she spoke. “You and I both know that Stiles can’t be saved this time. He made the sacrifice, you have to live with the consequences. You’re going to lose him, Scott.”

And then she was gone, disappearing right in front of him. Scott let out a shaky breath, looking around. It almost felt like a dream, but he knew that it was real. He’d seen Allison’s ghost. But what he didn’t understand was why.

* * *

It was nearly three in the morning, and Lydia pulled her car into the Stilinski’s driveway next to the Jeep. Noah’s cruiser wasn’t there, so she knew that he was on shift. It wasn’t the first time that she’d shown up at Stiles’ house in the middle of the night, but it was one of the first times Stiles didn’t know. Usually, she sent him a text or he asked her to come over. There were many mornings that Stiles snuck her into the house while the Sheriff slept on upstairs, the two of them tiptoeing down the hall to Stiles room.  This time, she left her cell phone on the passenger seat of her car and got out.

The house was silent as she let herself inside with the key that Stiles had given her sometime after the Beast was gone. It was attached to a small keychain that was in the shape of a heart, terribly cliche but something that Lydia loved more than anything. She left it on the table by the stairs, toeing off her shoes so that she wouldn’t make any noise as she walked down the hall to Stiles’ room.

She pushed open his bedroom door, stepping into the dark room and nudging the door shut behind her. He wasn’t as heavy of a sleeper as he used to be, and she saw him move around on the bed as she got closer.

“Lyds, what are you doing here?” he asked groggily, pushing himself up on his elbows.

She let her eyes adjust to the darkness, and she was finally able to see him clearly. His eyes were focused on her, and he looked worried about the fact that she wasn’t speaking. He started to reach over and turn on the lamp, but Lydia caught his wrist.

“Don’t,” she whispered, pushing his arm back. He opened his mouth to speak, but she shook her head. “Just don’t.”

She crawled onto the bed over him, straddling his hips and pressing her fingertips into his chest, pushing him back down onto the bed. He went willingly, always willingly, his hands curving around her hips and grasping onto the fabric of her skirt.

“Lydia…” he breathed out her name but she shook her head again, hair falling in her eyes as she leaned over him. Her hands slid up over his collarbones, slipping gently around his neck. Stiles tipped his head back, baring his throat for her.

She squeezed slightly, just because she could, because he would let her, sliding her hands up into his hair and tugging. He arched up against her, pulling her hips down at the same time and Lydia whimpered as she rolled her hips against his. Finally she kissed him, soft and slow, teeth catching on his bottom lip and tugging. It was one of Stiles’ weaknesses and she knew it. He flipped her beneath him, blanketing her body with his, and his lips returns to hers, more demanding than her kiss had been. She went with it, desperate from him to be closer to her.

“You can’t leave me Stiles, I won’t let you,” she breathed when he pulled away and even in the darkness she knew that soft look on his face, one he’d been looking at her with for the longest time. “You’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” he agreed, hands sliding beneath her skirt. 

His knuckles grazed her inner thigh teasingly and she gasped, legs falling open wider around his hips. But then he curled his fingers over the waistband of her panties and pulled them down. Lydia lifted her hips and then her legs, kicking them off somewhere in the direction of the end of the bed. Using her feet, she nudged at his pajama bottoms. He took the hint quickly, shoving them down to his knees. She watched him as he flailed and reached over her, nearly falling off of the bed in his efforts to get to the condoms in his nightable. Trailing her fingers up beneath his t-shirt, she scratched her nails over his sides, enjoying the way that he cursed and twitched away from her.

“Problem, Stilinski?” she asked, her voice surprisingly quiet despite the fact that they were the only two people in the house.

Looming over her, Stiles smiled sharply, and Lydia swallowed hard. She would never be surprised at how easily he could wreck her without saying anything. She was completely ready and willing for him to take her apart and piece her back together, and she nudged him in the ribs again. In the darkness of the bedroom, she saw that he had the audacity to wink at her before shifting down the bed. He didn’t even bother taking off her skirt, he just pushed it up and eased her legs apart, fitting her shoulders between them.

The first time Stiles had gone down on her, Lydia had very nearly blacked out and she understood his oral fixation more than anything. He had a way of being able to torture her to the point of wanting to cry and ask for more in the same breath. She hooked a leg over his shoulder, heel digging into his back as he nipped at her inner thigh and twisted two fingers inside of her, curving them up just right. Lydia loved the feeling of him inside of her, any way that she could have him. His thumb brushed over her clit again and again, and she very nearly screamed, back arching off of the bed as she grabbed at the pillow beneath her head with one hand and Stiles’ hair with the other.

“Stiles, please,” she gasped his name, pulling on his hair. “Make me come, Stiles.”

But he moved away from her, leaving her right on the edge. She was going to kill him. Looking down her body, Lydia saw him on his knees, tearing open the condom package. His shirt was gone, somewhere on his floor, but his pajama pants were still around his thighs and Lydia sat up, taking the condom from him and putting it on him. Her fingers squeezed him tight at the base and he hunched over, mouth colliding with hers.

“Problem, Martin?” he asked, throwing her own words back at her. Lydia pushed him back, pulling her top over her head and dropping it onto the bed. She didn’t bother taking off her bra or her skirt.

“The problem is that you’re not inside of me already,” she said, leaning back on her elbows.

He smirked at her, moving over her and fitting his hips between her thighs. A shuddering gasp escaped her as he pushed himself inside of her, and with their faces only inches apart, Lydia was able to see the look of awe on Stiles’ face. The feeling was very mutual, but she couldn’t bring herself to say that out loud.

He started to move and Lydia fell back on the pillows, still so very close from before. Hooking her legs around Stiles’ lower back, Lydia met every thrust, rolling her hips up to meet his, her breath coming in ragged pants. Stiles’ eyes never left her face, his fingers tangling with hers, and Lydia tried her best to swallow the lump that was forming in her throat.

“You’re going to leave me,” she gasped, tears sliding out of her eyes.

Stiles stilled, looking at her with concern, “Lydia, I--”

She kissed him to shut him up. She didn’t want him to think about it. She wanted him to keep going, and eventually he did. She could feel herself getting closer and she pulled her hands away from his, digging her nails into his shoulders, pulling him deeper inside of her.

“C’mon,” he whispered against her lips, and Lydia whined as she felt her body tighten, “C’mon Lyds, get there for me.”

One of Stiles’ hands curled around the headboard above her, the other around the back of her neck. She raked her nails down his arm when she came, head bowing back into the pillow as she did scream. She had enough control over her power that it wasn’t a banshee scream, but it was very close to it. Through the haze of her orgasm, she felt Stiles’ hips stuttering as he reached his own climax, body stiffening and stilling against hers. He laughed breathlessly against her neck, and she shivered as his his breath ghosted over her damp skin.

Shifting off of her, Stiles threw the condom in the trash can under the night table and tugged his pants back up. “Are we going to keep this up?” he asked as he lay down beside her.

Panic suddenly spiked through her, but she realized that he was talking about the deal that he’d made, not the two of them together. She grabbed his shirt off of the floor, wiggling out of her tank top and skirt before pulling it over her head.

“You mean where you pretend not to know that I’m going to do everything I can to save you?”

Twisting around on the bed, Lydia pressed her back to Stiles chest. Immediately he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her as close as he could. She pulled the blankets up over them.

He sighed, his fingers skimming up and down her arm, “If Carin found out that you were going to try and exploit a loophole in this deal, she would come after you.  I don’t want that to happen.”

She understood the fear he had, but it wasn’t going to stop her from looking. The book that Deaton had given her didn’t show any promise yet, but Lydia wasn’t even halfway through it. She completely understood Latin, but some of the translations were taking long than others.

“Stiles, I love you. If she wants to try to come after me, I’ll scream so loud that the blood vessels in her brain burst,” she said. She waited for him to protest, but it didn’t happen. When she twisted her head back to look at him, Lydia saw that he was just watching her with a soft look on his face.

“I love you, too,” he brushed his lips across hers. “Okay, let’s try to outsmart a demon. Should be easy, right? It’s not like we have anything else to do this summer.”

“You still have to tell the Sheriff what you did, Stiles,” Lydia pointed out.

Stiles just cursed and pressed his face into her neck.

* * *

Stiles would have told his dad the next morning, after he’d walked Lydia out to her car, but he didn’t get the chance. His cell phone was ringing on his nightstand and he reached over Lydia to pick it up. Scott’s picture and number were on the screen and Stiles squinted, pressing the accept-call button and putting the phone to his ear. Beside him, Lydia rolled over onto her back, trying to push her hair out of her eyes.

“Scott? What’s going on?” he asked.

“ _ Hey, can you pick up Lydia and come over? _ ” Stiles sat up in bed. Scott sounded scared.

Lydia was looking more awake as she sat up and curled her hand over Stiles’ shoulder.

“ _ It’s not anything bad...it will just make more sense if I can talk about it with you face to face, _ ” Scott explained.

Stiles let out the breath he’d been holding, “Sure Scotty, we’ll be there soon.”

Hanging up the phone, he looked over at Lydia, who had an anxious expression on her face.

“He says it’s not serious, but he needs to see us to talk about it,” he relayed.

They shared a quick shower and got dressed. Since around the end of their senior year, Lydia had a designated drawer in Stiles’ dresser where she kept extra clothes. It saved her from having to go home in the clothes that she’d worn the night before. Even with Scott’s cryptic call, Stiles was still able to be distracted by Lydia slipping on a floral summer dress and braiding her hair.

The sheriff was in the kitchen when they came out of Stiles’ room, and they’d long since started avoiding the fact that Lydia slept over. He’d already given Stiles the talk about being responsible and safe, and that was something Stiles never wanted to live through again.

“Morning kids, there’s coffee,” Noah said, eyes never leaving the newspaper that he was reading. Lydia gave Stiles a pointed glance that he chose to ignore.

“Sorry pops, no can do. Scott needs us,” he said.

Noah glanced up at them, “Supernatural emergency?”

“Not sure yet. He just said that he needed to see us,” Lydia said, pasting on a smile. 

“We’ll let you know if it’s something though,” Stiles caught Lydia’s hand and started pulling her towards the front door. “Stay away from the bacon!”

They took Lydia’s car, the two of them wracking their brain trying to figure out what was going on. A threat to Beacon Hills wasn’t surprising; supernatural villains weren’t going to put off coming after Beacon Hills just because the majority of the pack was going to be going off to college soon. Malia’s car was parked at the curb, and that only solidified the idea that something had happened.

“Hey.” Lydia cut the engine and reached over to put a hand on Stiles’ bouncing knee, stilling him. “Scott said that it wasn’t bad, right? So we go in here with an open mind.”

He nodded his head. “I hope that you know that this whole optimistic attitude you have is really attractive.”

She pursed her lips, showing off her dimples, before leaning over and kissing him quickly. Stiles opened the door and got out of the car. Lydia walked around from the other side of the car and they walked up onto the McCall’s back porch. When they came into the kitchen, they saw that Malia, Kira, Liam and Mason were sitting at the kitchen table with Scott.

“Please tell me it’s not pixies,” Stiles said, because everyone looked like someone had died, and he didn’t want any more bad news.

“More like ghosts,” Malia said.

Stiles didn’t think that she was serious at first. But then he saw that Scott looked like he had indeed seen a ghost and he felt the hairs on his arm stand on end. “Ghosts? A specific ghost?”

Scott stared at the table, “I saw Allison.”

Stiles turned to look at Lydia, and the look on her face killed him. He had a vague memory of being in those tunnels with her and hearing her scream Allison’s name. She’d been her best friend, and he knew that she still carried some kind of guilt about Allison’s death, no matter who told Lydia that it wasn’t her fault. He’d always feel guilty too, because of the Nogitsune. But it was still harder on Lydia and Scott.

“What happened? Did she talk to you?” the banshee asked, her voice urgent.

Scott looked uneasy, and Kira reached over and squeezed his hand. “She talked about Stiles, about the deal that he made.”

Stiles wasn’t the only one confused by that, judging by the looks on everyone’s faces. From what he knew about ghosts, they usually haunted a place because they weren’t able to move on. Scott had told him that Allison had been at peace when she died, more or less. There was no reason for her to be haunting Scott, especially at this time. Or to be bringing up Stiles’ deal.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Mason admitted. “If she were a vengeful spirit, she would have tried to hurt you. And Allison died, what, not even two years ago? I’ve got a limited knowledge of ghosts, but I’m pretty sure her spirit would have moved on.”

“So what, it’s not really Allison?” Kira asked, sounding sad. She hadn’t had enough time to really become friends with Allison before she died, but she still knew her.

Lydia wrapped her arms around herself, and Stiles immediately reached for her. “Has anyone else seen her? Or anyone else that has died?”

Everyone shook their head, and it only made Stiles question what was going on even more. It meant something, he knew it did. Scott was visibly shaken by a conversation with his dead ex-girlfriend, and even if it hadn’t been about Stiles, he still would have had that look in his eyes, like someone was digging at an open wound.

“Could there be more?” Liam asked, looking around at everyone.

No one knew how to answer him. No one wanted to.

* * *

Once was an incident. Twice was a coincidence. Three times was a pattern.

Over the next week, three people in Beacon Hills called 911 reporting to have seen the ghosts of their dead loved ones. Even after everything that had happened with the Ghost Riders, the deputies were baffled by it. The town’s ability to suffer from the Sunnydale Effect still surprised those who were aware of the odd things that happened in town, and those who knew about the supernatural.

Lydia had become convinced that the ghosts were tied to the demon Carin when Malia saw Tracy, and she also taunted the werecoyote about Stiles’ deal. No one else had mentioned anything about Stiles, so she knew that the ghosts that the pack were seeing were being told what to say. And that meant that they weren’t even ghosts at all.

The demonology book that Deaton had given Lydia kept her busy when she and the others weren’t trying to figure out what was haunting Beacon Hills. She’d managed to translate a section about demons and their true selves, but she still had more to go through. Stiles continued to avoid the subject of his soul around his father, but Lydia knew that eventually he was going to have to break the news.

She, on the other hand, was avoiding her mother, who knew that something was going on and kept asking. Natalie would tell Noah in a heartbeat and Lydia couldn’t have that. She didn’t get out of bed until her mother left for the morning, peering through her curtains as she watched Natalie’s car pull out of the driveway.

“Why Lydia, you little rebel.” Lydia spun around to find a woman standing in the middle of her bedroom. She recognized her, but she knew that she wasn’t really the woman who’d worked the kid section of the library, not anymore. “Lying to mommy, that’s not good.”

“Carin.” Lydia refused to let herself be afraid, and the last thing that she wanted to do was let the demon see that she was scared of her. “Haven’t you ever heard of ringing a doorbell?”

“Oh, this is really cute! We’re going to do the banter thing? And then you’re going to use that little scream of yours on me?” Carin asked as she sat down on the bench at Lydia’s vanity. She crossed one leg over the other and brushed some dust off of the leather boots that she wore.

Lydia was beginning to regret not reading up on what type of weapons would hurt demons. Because by the way that Carin was acting, she didn’t seem all that afraid of the banshee’s powers. After a moment of just staring at each other, Lydia sat down on her bed. She glanced around for a moment, making sure that the book that Deaton had given her was well hidden.

“It’s rude not to talk to your guest, you know,” Carin piped up.

Lydia narrowed her eyes at her, “What are you doing here?”

Her phone was on her bed by her leg, and she thought of reaching for it to call Stiles or Scott. But she knew that Carin would probably notice and the results of that wouldn’t be pretty. So she kept her hands in her lap, and waited.

“I’m going to take your boyfriend’s soul, so I thought that it was only right that we met face-to-face. Well, this borrowed face, anyhow,” she said, waving the idea off.

“What are you going to do with his soul?”

Carin turned slightly on the bench, picking up a framed photo off of the vanity. It was the one of Lydia, Malia, Stiles and Scott that had been taken before the Ghost Riders took Stiles. She tapped her nails on the glass.

“Do you have any idea what kind of power can come from a soul? It would feel similar to channeling the power of your little tree, but it lasts longer. It’s quite a rush,” she replied.

Lydia’s brow furrowed. “But you told Stiles that it wasn’t worth that much because of the things he’d done.” The demon smiled at her, saying nothing, and she caught on. “You lied to him.”

“Of course I lied to him! Demon, remember? A soul like his could have easily gotten him a decade, especially with that untapped spark that he obviously has no idea what he can do with. But desperate times called for desperate measures, and he made a big sacrifice,” Carin explained.

Lydia felt sick. Stiles had been tricked into taking the shorter amount of time because he thought that it was the only way to save Scott and the others. He would have never taken the deal that was given to him if he’d known that there was another option.

“Did your alpha like my present?” Carin asked, holding up a picture of Lydia and Allison that had been taken sometime before Jackson became the Kamia. Lydia’s hands clenched into fists in her lap. “Don’t worry, someone should be coming to see you too. Everyone’s going to get a chance. My little friend doesn’t pick favorites.”

Lydia had been right, the ghosts were because of Carin. And the way that she said it made Lydia think that they weren’t just ghosts, but that they were something else entirely. The demon was sending whatever these things were as a distraction, and specifically targeting the pack, because of Stiles. 

Carin looked thoughtful. “Now, who should I send you? Your little boytoy Aiden? Or that pretty little blonde that Stiles almost--”

Lydia got to her feet and screamed, the sound echoing through the room. Glass shattered and Carin cried out, slamming her hands over her ears as she tried to get to her feet. Lydia saw her eyes turn black, and the banshee shoved the scream towards her before she could get close enough. The demon flew backwards into Lydia’s vanity. She started to move forward, but a cloud of black smoke burst forward from the girl’s mouth, disappearing out of Lydia’s broken window.

Lydia’s breath shuddered out of her and she stared at the body on the floor. Hesitantly, she stepped closer and leaned down to press her fingers to the girl’s pulse. There wasn’t one. Blood oozed out of her ears and her nose, and her lifeless eyes stared up at Lydia. Scrambling away, she grabbed her cell phone from her bed. She could have called 911, or even Stiles. But she found herself calling Scott first. He picked up on the second ring, and Lydia forced herself not to cry. Not yet.

“Scott? I need you.”

* * *

Stiles cradled Lydia in his arms as they sat on his front porch, the sky slowly darkening above them. She was wrapped up in his favorite striped hoodie, her head tucked under his chin and her legs sprawled across his lap. He rubbed his hand up and down her leg, hoping to comfort her. But it was to no avail.  He could still feel her shaking.

“I killed her,” she whispered, and he could hear the tears in her voice.

He shook his head. “For all we know, the demon could have killed her by possessing her. Deaton said that hosts for demons don’t usually survive.”

If what he said did anything to comfort her, Lydia didn’t let it show. He knew that this was just another piece of guilt for her to carry around, even though it wasn’t her fault at all. Carin had made her point, that she could get to Lydia anytime that she wanted. But Stiles wasn’t going to ask Lydia to stop looking for answers, not now.

Several of Lydia’s neighbors had heard her scream, and explaining the dead body in her house wasn’t going to be easy. Stiles’ dad was trying to come up with a reasonable explanation that would stick for the reports. It had been Natalie’s idea for her to go to the Stilinski house, and stay there for a little while.

“I had Scott take some of the translations to Deaton. I might have found something. I’m just glad that Carin didn’t get her hands on the book,” Lydia admitted, swiping her hands over her cheeks as she pulled back to look at Stiles.

He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but he’d be hopeful for Lydia. It had barely been a month, and he couldn’t imagine her spending an entire year trying to figure out a way out of the deal. Actually he could, because Lydia was just as selfless as he was.  If there was a way to get Stiles out of it, she wasn’t going to stop. And he loved her for it.

“Have I ever told you that you’re a genius and I love you?” Stiles asked, and it had the desired effect; Lydia smiled like she couldn’t help herself, and pulled him down for a soft kiss.

“I’m going to save you before the year is out,” she whispered against his mouth, and Stiles believed her. He would always believe her.

“Sorry to interrupt.” They broke apart to see Scott coming up the steps. Stiles glanced out at the driveway, not seeing his dirtbike. “I thought I would come see how Lydia was doing.”

“Thanks Scott, I’m okay.”

“That’s good, considering how fast this year is going to fly by. I know that it’s going to be hard on you,” he said, as if it were a totally normal thing to say.

Stiles frowned in disbelief. “What the fuck, Scott?”

“I’m just saying, the year is going to be up before you know it.”

Lydia tangled her fingers with Stiles’ and squeezed. Something was wrong, because that wasn’t Scott. They both realized it at the same time.

“How are you doing this? Scott is alive,” Lydia pointed out.

The thing that looked like Scott smiled, tilting his head and looking at them consideringly. “Oh, but he’s died before. You remember that, don’t you, Stiles? Oh that’s right, you weren’t there. Who’s going to be there with you when you die, I wonder?”

Stiles felt sick, but it was Lydia that moved. She got to her feet, reaching out to touch it. Scott, or whatever it was, shifted away before she could touch him.

“You can’t hurt us,” Lydia realized.

“Not physically, but I’m pretty sure I’m doing a good job of hurting you emotionally. That is the point, after all,” he said, like Lydia wasn’t catching on as fast as he wanted her to.

Before Stiles could ask what he wanted, there was a shout from the sidewalk. He jumped to his feet to see the real Scott running up to them, with Kira and Noshiko with him. Belatedly, he realized that it had been Kira’s mom who’d yelled, and that she’d yelled something in Japanese.

Just like that, whatever it was flickered out and disappeared. Lydia startled, going over to Scott and hugging him. He’d been staring at the spot where the creature had been, surprised that it had been wearing his face.

“What the hell is that thing?” he wondered.

“Obake.” At everyone’s confused looks, Noshiko went on, “It’s a Japanese spirit that can make itself appear to look like anyone who has died. They cannot touch you, but they can haunt you.”

“Japanese...like the Oni?” Kira asked.

“The Nemeton,” Scott and Stiles said at the same time.

Lydia tucked her hands into the sleeves of Stiles’ hoodie. “Carin told me that she was the one who brought it here, and I’m guessing from the Nemeton.”

It made sense.  The Nemeton was a place of power. It was where the Oni had been brought out and where the hellhound took the victims of the Dread Doctors. And it was where Stiles had summoned the demon. It made sense that other supernatural creatures could be summoned there.

“When Scott told me what he saw and what other people had been seeing, it hadn’t been that hard to figure it out.”

The sheriff’s police cruiser pulled into the driveway, and Stiles shifted from one foot to the other. He glanced between Lydia and Scott and they were both looking at him the same way. Even without them saying anything, he knew what they were thinking.  He had to tell his dad.

“After you talk to your dad, I want to talk to you about something else that Carin said to me,” Lydia said as she leaned into him.

“Will you be there when I tell him?” he asked them.

“Of course,” Lydia said, and Scott nodded in agreement.

“I think that I have a book somewhere that can tell us how to get rid of the Obake. Kira and I will find it for you,” Noshiko offered.

Stiles smiled slightly. “Benefits of being 900 years old, right?”

“Goodnight, Stiles.” Noshiko and Kira left, Kira kissing Scott quickly and promising to call him later. They both greeted the sheriff as they walked past him.

* * *

Noah realized something was going on when he walked onto the porch. Stiles, Scott and Lydia were standing there, all of them staring at him.

“Oh, crap,” he paused in his walk towards the front door. “Did something else happen?”

“Dad, I need to talk to you about something.”

Noah looked at Stiles, squinting his eyes in a way that he didn’t realize Stiles often did himself. Judging by the somber looks on Scott and Lydia’s faces, whatever Stiles had to say couldn’t have been good. Stiles looked scared, and Noah swallowed hard. There wasn’t something going on, something was wrong.

“Let’s go inside and talk then,” he said, opening the front door.

The four of them went into the house, and Noah walked into the kitchen, the others trailing behind him. He sat down at the kitchen table, and they all did the same. He saw that Lydia immediately curled her hand around Stiles’. That was nothing new, but the way that Stiles’ free hand shook was.

“Are you going to need bail money?” he asked, trying to lighten the somber mood. Scott cracked the smallest of smiles, but Stiles just stared.

“I’m the reason that the Daeva is gone, and why Scott and the others healed so fast,” he began. Noah felt that uneasy knot in his stomach tightening, but he waited. “I summoned the demon that brought the Daeva here.”

“You did  _ what _ ?”

Stiles flinched and raked his free hand through his hair. “Dad, there was no other way! I made the choice and it saved their lives.”

“What did you do?” Noah’s voice rose and he caught a glimpse of Lydia squeezing her eyes shut and turning her head away. Scott had tears in his eyes, and Noah was afraid of whatever his kid was about to tell him. “Stiles, what did you do?”

“I made a deal with the demon. My soul for them,” Stiles said quietly.

“He got a year,” Scott added, and he said it because he knew that Stiles couldn’t.

Noah stared at Stiles, wondering if he was actually hearing what they were saying. Maybe it was all some sort of dream, or an illusion of some kind. There was no actual way that his son had done this, not something this big. Not something this scary and life-changing. He’d only gotten his son back not even two months earlier. He let out a disbelieving laugh, but sobered quickly when Stiles dragged the heel of his hand over one eye, and then the other.

“Dad, I had to do it, there was no other way--”

“There’s always another way!” Noah yelled, cutting him off. 

Stiles shook his head. “No, there wasn’t! Not in that moment, not when Scott was going to die--”

“What happens at the end of the year? You’ve saved your friends, but you’ll be dead. I love Scott like a son, but was there really no other way but selling your soul off?”

“It was worth it,” Stiles said, not a hint of doubt in his voice.

“So you’re telling me that you’re going to die in a year and I just have to, what, accept it? Are you out of your mind?” Noah yelled.

He remembered when Stiles first told him about werewolves and what was really going on in Beacon Hills. He’d been so hesitant to believe him. It all seemed so insane. And now, here he was, listening to his son tell him that he sold his soul to a demon in order to save his friends. Noah didn’t understand how Stiles could be so selfless and yet so selfish at the same time.

Lydia finally spoke up. “I’m trying to find a way to get him out of it.”

Of course she was. Noah was unsurprised by this. Lydia and Stiles were constantly saving each other, and he should have been used to it by now. But he thought after Eichen, and after the Ghost Riders, that they wouldn’t need saving anymore.

“How certain are you that you can get him out of it?” Noah asked.

“Deaton’s trying to help us with a few leads, but we’re not quite there yet,” she admitted sadly.

“I need a drink,” Noah announced.

No one said anything when he got up and got the bottle of whiskey from the cabinet. It had been a gift from one of his deputies, but he didn’t drink enough to bother opening it. Not in a long while. But this was a moment when he needed a drink.

* * *

Lydia leaned against the bathroom counter, brushing her teeth but not really paying attention. Her eyes were focused on the tense set of Stiles’ shoulders as he stood beneath the shower spray. Scott had gone home and Noah had exactly one drink before going to bed. Stiles hadn’t known what else to say to him. None of them did. Lydia just hoped that Deaton got back to her soon. Stiles wasn’t going to die tomorrow, but it was going to feel like it until they pulled him out of the deal. She’d told him what Carin had said about the deal, and the spark, and she knew that it weighed on him.

Stripping out of her clothes, Lydia stepped into the stall behind him. She needed to be close to him, smoothing her hands down his back and waiting for him to relax beneath her touch.

“Stiles, what do you think of when I say ‘the demon’s true self’?” she asked, her voice carrying over the sound of the water.

He shrugged his shoulder and she narrowed her eyes at him. After a moment, he turned around and looked at her, “Demons possess bodies so that they can be solid. Their true forms would be smoke.”

“When I screamed, Carin left the body that she was possessing in a cloud of smoke.  But before she did that, I saw that I was hurting her. She covered her ears,” she explained as they shifted around in the stall so that she could wet her hair beneath the spray.

It just felt so comfortably domestic to her, sharing a shower and talking about demons. It wasn’t even sexual, at least not at that moment. She couldn’t think of not having that. Sure, she wanted the normal life that she could possibly get at college, but she was a banshee and that wasn’t going to change. She’d learned to embrace it. But she didn’t want to lose out on this. Stiles grabbed the bottle of shampoo that Lydia kept there, and she smiled, turning around so he could soap up her hair.

“So we just need to find a way to trap Carin in her true form, and kill her,” she said, humming in contentment as he massaged her scalp.

“Everything supernatural is killable,” he scrubbed at the nape of her neck and she shivered, her head lolling forward. “Turn around.”

Lydia turned back so that she was facing him, and tilted her head back under the spray. Her eyes slipped close as he scrubbed his hands through her hair to get the shampoo out.

“First, we have to get rid of the Obake,” she said.

“How will we be able to do that when we can’t even touch it?”

Lydia thought about it. Everyone who had seen the Obake had never said anything about being able to touch it.  And when she tried to touch it when it looked like Scott, it moved before she could.

“It’s afraid to be touched,” she realized.

They only knew one person who could hurt someone with their touch if they needed to. Kira could easily electrocute the Obake if she could get her hands on it, using her kitsune powers the same way that she caused the brown-out at Eichen. She had more control over her fox since she’d come back to Beacon Hills.  Lydia was confident that the kitsune could do it. They hurried through the rest of their shower and got dressed. Lydia sent Kira a text as they were leaving the house. She hopped into the passenger seat of the Jeep, her hair still damp and leaving wet spots all over her shirt. 

“How do we get the Obake to come to us?” she asked as they sped down the road. Stiles made a sharp left turn.

“We go to where it was summoned from,” he glanced over at her, and then put his eyes back on the road. “But we need to talk to Mason and Deaton first.”

* * *

“It’s called a Devil’s Trap.” Mason twisted the book around on the examination table for everyone to see. “You can use it to trap the demon.”

Stiles squinted at the picture that looked like a pentagram with random symbols on it. But it made sense, something like that being able to hold a demon. Everyone was gathered in the back room of the animal clinic, and as soon as Lydia had suggested that they should try to trap the demon, Mason had been able to find the symbol in the book that Lydia had.

“When she sees that you’ve gotten rid of the Obake, Carin will show up for her. We’ll trap her in this and Lydia will use her scream,” he explained.

“Are you sure that I’ll be able to touch the Obake?” Kira asked. Lydia nodded confidently.

“It was afraid of your mom. I think that you’ll be able to get your hands on it, and give it enough of a shock to make it go away. I don’t think you’ll kill it,” she said.

Scott nodded in agreement. “You’re the only one who will be able to hurt it when you touch it.”

Malia came into the back room, a can of paint in her hands. “Got it!”

They were going to have to paint the symbol on the Nemeton, but it had to be done in a color that Carin wouldn’t be able to notice right away. It would have been easier to paint it bright red, but they didn’t need easy. They needed it to work.

“You’re certain that this plan is going to work?” Deaton asked, but he didn’t sound unconvinced. He’d found the same thing that Lydia and Stiles had talked about, that the demon’s true form could be destroyed if trapped.

“Well, it’s Lydia’s plan, so I don’t see how it could go wrong,” Liam said.

Stiles caught that hesitant smile on Lydia’s face, and squeezed her hand. Since she’d become a banshee, she still had moments of thinking that her intuitions could be wrong or that her ideas wouldn’t work. He thought that it came from all of the time that she spent pretending not to be as smart as she actually was, and had a sudden urge to find Jackson and punch him in the face more than once.

“Okay, Malia and Scott are gonna paint the Devil’s Trap, and then I’ll just wait for the Obake to show up. When it does, Kira will grab it.” Everyone nodded in agreement. “Carin shouldn’t be too far, and Lydia will knock her onto the Nemeton.”

“I wish that I didn’t have to use my powers to hurt someone,” Lydia admitted. 

“My mom said that the librarian’s neck was snapped, and it hadn’t been done by your scream,” Scott told her, as if it would help. Stiles knew that it probably didn’t.

* * *

They parked Stiles’ Jeep and Malia’s car at the edge of the Preserve and split up. Lydia went with Kira and Liam, and Malia and Scott went with Stiles. Stiles was using the flashlight on his phone to see, but the shifters had their supernatural eyesight to their advantage. It felt like the night that they were attacked by the Daeva, and he tried not to let the uneasy feeling that he had overwhelm them.

When they reached the Nemeton, Stiles scanned the surrounding tree lines as best as he could, hoping not to see anyone unwelcome yet. He did see a pair of glowing orange eyes that could only come from Kira, and then a flash of gold from Liam. Lydia was out there with them, but she was safe.

“It’s done.” Scott stepped down off of the Nemeton and Stiles ran the light from his phone over the top of the stump. The Devil’s Trap was painted exactly like the drawing that Malia held of it. “How long do you think we’ll have to wait?”

“Probably not long.  Stay on the right.” He glanced towards the tree again, knowing that he was going to be heard. “Kira, no matter what the Obake looks like, you need to be ready.”

“She said that she will be,” Malia relayed as she hopped off of the stump.

He watched them walk off into the woods, and for a moment it seemed brighter. But the clouds had shifted, the light of the moon illuminating the clearing.

“Stiles.” He’d given up on being surprised by what the Obake looked like, but when he saw Erica walking towards him, it threw him. “Don’t you know that it isn’t safe in the woods at night?”

He shrugged his shoulders, feeling a twist in his stomach as Erica--he was thinking of it as her, he couldn’t help it--pushed her blonde curls over one shoulder and smiled at him.

“I know that Carin thinks that you’ll be able to distract us and make us distraught enough to do something--”

“As desperate as you did, like sell your soul?” she wondered, a false sweetness drenching her voice.

Stiles shook his head, watching the way that she flickered. “If I’d known that she was going to lie to me about how long I’d get, I wouldn’t have made the deal.”

“Yes, you would have. Don’t lie, Stiles. She could have told you that the only way to save Scott would be you’d get a week, and you’d have taken it. It’s kinda heroic, huh,  _ Batman _ ?”

Stiles had already had enough. “Kira, now!”

Erica looked confused, and she opened her mouth to say something. But she didn’t get the chance. There was a blur of motion as Kira ran out of the woods at full speed, and she grabbed Erica by the arms. She looked alarmed, trying to flicker out of view, but it wouldn’t work. Stiles watched as the electricity began to flow from Kira’s hands, and Erica screamed in agony. The Obake, he reminded himself belatedly. It wasn’t really Erica. 

Kira let go, and with one final flicker, the Obake went from looking like Erica to looking like a grey faceless shape, long black hair falling into tangles. It fell to the ground, and didn’t get back up.

“It worked!” Kira said, and she might have been hesitant about it, but Stiles could see she was proud of herself.

And then, without warning, she was flying through the air. Stiles watched in horror as she hit the ground a few feet away. To his right, he heard Scott yelling Kira’s name, and he saw everyone come racing out of the woods.

“Now now, little fox.” A woman that he’d never seen before was standing on the other side of the Nemeton, and he knew that it was Carin. “You’re not supposed to touch other people’s things.”

But she wasn’t looking at where Kira had landed.  Instead, she was looking at where Liam was lifting Kira’s limp body into his arms and walking off in the direction of the path that led to Stiles’ Jeep. Lydia hadn’t screamed, so Stiles felt his heartbeat returning to normal. Carin’s attention was all on him, and that was what he wanted.

“You lied to me,” he said, finally showing her what else he was holding in his hand; his aluminum baseball bat hung at his side. She wasn’t surprised by it, or scared of it.

Carin shrugged in the darkness. “Demon’s lie. You fell for it.”

“I want the ten years.”

“And I want a pony. We can’t all get what we want, Stiles,” she scoffed.

“You’re right, we can’t,” Lydia said from behind her. Carin didn’t have enough time to use her power on the banshee.

All it took was a shove, and Carin fell backwards onto the Nemeton. Scott came running up to Stiles’ side and they waited to see what would happen.

“Your girlfriend is resorting to pushing, Stiles. That’s very freshman high school of her,” Carin said as she pulled herself to her feet. 

“Just wait, it’ll get better,” Malia said from Stiles’ left.

Carin rolled her eyes. “I’m done with you petty teenagers. I told you what I would do, Stiles, if--”

She tried to step off of the Nemeton and couldn’t, slamming into an invisible wall. The Devil’s Trap had worked. Surprise crossed her face, followed by absolute fury.

“You see, you told me not to try to get out of the deal, but you forgot about one thing,” Stiles said, stepping around the Nemeton to Lydia’s side.

“Let me out of here right now! I’m going to rip all of your hearts out and feed them to you!” Carin screamed.

“That’s...gross,” Malia said, wrinkling her nose.

“Did you know that if a demon dies,  _ really _ dies, any contracts that they have with someone will be null and void?” Scott asked.

“So really, you don’t need to let Stiles out of the deal,” Lydia said.

Stiles knew to cover his ears even before she started screaming. Lydia pushed white tendrils of power towards the Nemeton, and they went right through the barrier that had been created. As expected, Carin tried to leave the body that she was possessing, but it was to no avail. The demon’s true form was smoke, but the smoke wasn’t getting through the Devil’s Trap. He watched as it slammed against the invisible walls, and a high-pitched squealing sound came from it, the purplish glow that the smoke carried getting dimmer and dimmer.

Lydia stopped screaming, almost collapsing to her knees. Stiles caught her around the waist, holding her up against him. The smoke’s shrieks had stopped and it just evaporated, leaving nothing but the nameless woman’s body laying there on the stump.

“It’s gone, the demon’s gone,” Scott said as he reached for the Nemeton. His hand didn’t come up against a barrier, and he hesitantly reached out and touched the woman’s neck. “Wait, she still has a pulse.”

Lydia straightened, looking hopeful. “We have to get her to a hospital.”

Scott lifted the woman up into his arms and carried her in the same direction that Liam had gone with Kira. Malia followed after him. Stiles looked at Lydia, who was still staring at the Nemeton.

“How do we know if it really worked?” she wondered hesitantly.

“I guess we’ll have to wait the year.”

“Stiles-”

He cut her off, pulling her into his arms and kissing her, effectively stopping her from dwelling on the doubts that she might have had. He was confident that it had worked, that his soul was still his and he wouldn’t be dying anytime soon. Lydia clung to him, and Stiles knew that he would never get tired of the feeling of holding her in his arms.

“You saved me again, Lydia,” he whispered, and she smiled up at him.

“I figured I owed you one,” she shrugged nonchalantly, but leaned back into him, pressing her face into his neck and breathing in. “But don’t you ever do anything like this again.”

“I promise, I won’t,” he said, and he meant it.

* * *

_ One Year Later _

Stiles stared at the clock. It was five minutes to midnight and he had to admit, he was a little nervous. Chewing on his thumbnail, he glanced out the window of his dorm room and then dropped down into his desk chair. His roommate had already headed home for the summer, and Stiles told himself that he wasn’t going to dwell on it. It had been a year, almost. It would be a year after midnight. He was going back to Beacon Hills soon. He just had to get through the next five minutes.

Going to college across the country had been a new experience for him. His dad had his acceptance letter to George Washington University framed, and that was something Stiles would never forget, especially after those few weeks where his fate had been uncertain. Lydia wasn’t far away at MIT, but Scott was back in California at UC Davis, and Malia had gotten into Berkeley. It felt odd, having the pack scattered, but they managed to make it work. He and Lydia especially, who only had seven hours between them.

A knock on the door caused him to jump up, knocking his desk chair back. The door swung open before he could answer it. He didn’t know what he was expecting, perhaps the grim reaper or a cloud of black smoke. Instead, it was his girlfriend.

“Oh, thank god,” he breathed, rushing over and flinging his arms around her.

Lydia let out a surprise laugh, letting her bag slide to the floor. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just mildly panicking. I know that I said I was sure, but then we weren’t entirely sure, and I got caught up in school,” he babbled on, and Lydia was watching him indulgently, hands on his waist as she listened to him panic.

“Stiles?”

“Hm?” He got distracted suddenly by the dimples in her cheeks as she smiled up at him. She’d driven nearly seven hours just to come there and spend the night with him before they flew out to California the next morning. 

“It’s after twelve,” she said, pointing to the clock.

It was three minutes after, and Stiles was fine. He’d read enough to know that if there was still a deal in place, as soon as it hit midnight, he would have dropped dead right there. Letting out a loud whoop, Stiles hauled Lydia into his arms, spinning her around and listening to her delighted laugh in his ears.

“Do you know what this means?” she asked when he put her down, smoothing her hair back down into place.

“That we can have reunion sex and be as loud as we want because my roommate is already gone?”

Lydia smacked him on the chest. “No! Well, yes, but I was thinking that we should call Scott and let him know that you’re okay. And then we could watch a movie, relax, and catch up. And then we can think about the reunion sex.”

“Lydia, if you brought popcorn-flavored jelly beans, I’m going to love you even more because they are still my favorite,” he said as he reached for his cell phone.

“And they are still disgusting,” she relented, pulling a bag of Jelly Bellys from her bag anyways.

“See, I knew it. I love you!”

“Dial the phone, Stiles,” Lydia perched on the edge of Stiles’ desk, staring at him fondly.

“Hey Lyds, how many days are there in forever?” he asked suddenly. She practically beamed at him, pulling him closer by his shirt and hooking her legs around his hips. 

“A lot,” she said, before pulling the phone from Stiles’ hand and dialing the number herself.

A lot. Stiles could live with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Also, many thanks to Sydney ([theblakes](http://theblakes.tumblr.com)) for suggesting the Obake as a minor monster to deal with.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr here - - > [sterydia](http://sterydia.tumblr.com)


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